8 June update:
We have received a lot of warm messages acknowledging our work, as well as enquiring about the local data that we used so that they could look on. Here we provide a summary with all the data sources used in our Covid-19 Portal:
https://www.deckzero.com/forum/content-discussion/covid-19-data-sources
We would like to thank everyone again for their support.
7 June 2020
Thank you for your attention to our Covid-19 portal and the RZ Index heatmap. We have a message for you.
Deckzero is a startup company aiming at providing a platform and tools for building and sharing quantitative analytics. As a platform provider, Deckzero does not have a view or take positions on individual research decks published.
The COVID-19 decks are one of our personal projects stemming from the desire to answer our own questions on how we are positioned in the pandemic based on limited official data, drawing from our quantitative experiences. Throughout the project we have been using government-sourced data and have been compiling statistics with the full view of the context of the test data. We have procedures in place to check the correctness and relevance of our data and presentation, and in case of an error, a way to quickly address and fix it.
The RZ Index heatmap was our attempt to visualise the live case dynamic changes in a local area. This index had a similar scale and trend with Rt, but was sensitive to weekly case reporting changes in local areas (an intended feature), therefore we had made very clear that the index was specific to the time and local area context. The original disclaimer on the deck carried the following statement:
"RZ Index is provided here to indicate and signal changes in new cases, rather than to replicate the scientific R number. It is not official or governmental guidance and shall not be used in any scenario or situation where the government guidance should be followed, including but not limited to policy making by local organisations."
Deckzero never issued any press releases on any part of our Covid-19 analysis, nor commissioned any paid promotion activities through any social media channels. However, the index had since attracted considerably more attention than initially expected, and was later on quoted and interpreted out of the context and scope of its original intention, which was to help our local friends to increase the daily awareness of Covid development in their areas. To avoid further misunderstanding, we removed the relevant pages from public access on 2 June, which contained the local RZ indices based on case data from 14 May to 29 May.
Having reviewed our resourcing, we have decided to draw a conclusion on publishing the Covid-19 set of decks. As with many other data and case analysis projects arisen from this pandemic, we believe we have provided value in pioneering a number of new ways to better understand the government data. What we have learnt from closely following the global pandemic figures since mid January is that every increase in new cases counts, no matter how small the initial case number is; without individual awareness and effective chain-breaking, the pandemic grew exponentially from a tiny number to what we had all seen in the past months.
Aside from building quantitative analytics platform to further the spread of sciences, our team, like many others in this country, have also been actively helping our local communities and key workers by donating essential supplies including PPEs.
We would like to thank everyone who have helped us through this journey by means of likes, feedbacks, and constructive comments. Going forward, as we try to kick-start the recovery from the pandemic, our team will refocus on platform building for research and education in quantitative sciences.
Keep well and #StayAlertđ
Best wishes,
Deckzero Team